


I’d Walk Through Hell For You

by OfficialStarsandGutters



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:21:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29297316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfficialStarsandGutters/pseuds/OfficialStarsandGutters
Summary: The Hades/Persephone AU no one asked for, but I couldn’t stop thinking about.*“Your heart is beating so fast.”“Yes.”“Because of me?”“Who else?”“Why?”“You make me feel alive.”“You are alive.”“I don’t always feel it.”
Relationships: Kevin Day/Aaron Minyard
Comments: 7
Kudos: 37





	I’d Walk Through Hell For You

**Author's Note:**

> Title from A Walk Through Hell by Say Anything
> 
> Thank you to Cam for helping me with French swear words 😌
> 
> Content Warnings:  
> Parental abuse - verbal and physical  
> Non graphic violence  
> Explicit sexual content  
> Light bondage 
> 
> This will probably be the only time I write Kevin as White, because I reject many things in canon, and Kevin being light skinned is one of them.

Sunbeams beat down hot against the back of Aaron’s neck. He pauses in his digging and leans heavily onto his shovel. He is soaked with sweat, his muscles ache with exertion, and his hands are getting rough and calloused from digging. Digging digging digging. He can bring flowers from the earth with a wave of his hand, but the produce has to be planted. It had been Tilda’s responsibility, once, but now it is his.

“Why else did you think I had you? I got tired. So I had a child to do it for me.”

As with most children, Aaron had little interest in long hours of physical labour. So Tilda beat him until he realised he was even less interested in that kind of physical pain.

Aaron wipes his forehead with the back of his forearm, but his arms are just as sweat damp as his face, so it doesn’t help much. His hands are dirty. There’s soil pressed in beneath his fingernails. His wrist is circled with a bruise from Tilda grabbing him too hard a few days ago. He sighs, and lays down his shovel. 

Tears prick at his eyes but Aaron doesn’t let them fall. He’s too dehydrated to be wasting water on tears. He crosses through the ready planted rows and climbs the fence at the edge of the field. It’s a short walk to the forest. The brambles part for him as he approaches. The ground fluffs up with soft undergrowth for his feet, sweet flowers blossoming among it. Aaron smiles. He reaches up a hand, and the vines stretch down to tickle his fingers. He much prefers the shade of the trees to the bare stretch of the fields.

Aaron makes his way to the river and washes his hands off the best he can in the flowing water. He splashes his face, savouring the cool against his skin. He cups his hands and uses them to drink from. He slides his legs in to the knee and lets the cool water soothe the aching muscles of his calves. As he sits, a ring of flowers grows around him, bright and sweet scented. 

He’s so tired. Physically, yes, but of existence altogether, because that’s all this is. It is not a life. He is not living. He is simply stumbling along, surviving, unhappy and unfulfilled. The flowers start to sprout up alongside the river, a sharp line leading away from him.

“I can’t leave,” Aaron says, thinking of what Tilda would do if he did. 

The flowers blossom with bright petals. Pretty and impossible to ignore. Aaron bites his lip. He looks over his shoulder. The breeze tickles his face, blows the strands of his messy ponytail in the direction of the flowers. Aaron closes his eyes and breathes the floral scent. His heart aches with the desire to go. It feels like a sign.

Aaron stands. He looks back the way he came, but the brambles are closing over now, blocking the path. The trees form a criss cross of branches. Aaron laughs. 

“Okay. I get the message.” He touches one of the tree trunks, and branches heavy with ripe fruit lower in offering to him. Aaron takes a peach, strokes his fingers along the branch in thanks. The fruit is sweet and juicy. _Is this what freedom tastes like?_ He licks juice from his lower lip and starts to follow the flower trail.

*

He walks for the rest of the day, flowers sprouting and leading the way. When the forest gets too thick, it does its best to make way for him. Where it can’t, it accommodates. He reaches a fallen tree, trunk almost as tall as him, and another tree reaches branches down like steps for him. 

“Thank you,” Aaron says. 

In return, he helps how he can. Fixes broken branches, clears rot from trees, gently encourages the growth of those plants struggling in the dark of the forest floor. He’s tired by sundown; both from walking and using so much of his energy, but he feels good, too. Feels like he’s done something much more worthwhile than usual. 

Aaron sleeps in the hollowed out trunk of a tree, moss fluffing up to pillow his head. Branches close across the entrance to guard him. He wakes in the morning blanketed in flowers. Aaron smiles, yawns, stretches awake and takes a moment to enjoy the quiet. The distinct lack of his mother’s shouting. Just the ambient sounds of the forest as a soothing backdrop. 

He has a breakfast of berries and finds his way back to the river. He strips and lets himself bathe fully this time, untying his hair and letting the golden curls fall loose. He shakes the little flowers growing through his hair out of it so he can duck his head beneath the water. His giggling is barely audible above the sound of water as he ducks and splashes, giddy with the feeling of freedom. 

Aaron stretches out on a rock and lets the heat of the sun dry him. It’s much more pleasant to feel the warm rays on his skin when he’s not digging in a field. He’s washed his clothes in the river and left them to dry beside him. He naps on and off until the afternoon. A little stiff from sleeping on a rock, he redresses and starts on his way again.

He comes to the edge of the forest by late afternoon. The flower path is sparser now, and Aaron is not sure if they were ever really leading him, or if he was prompting them to grow. He feels exposed beyond the shelter of the branches, so he picks up his pace, striding swiftly across the dips and rises of the fields. The air is scented faintly with salt, the promise of an ocean nearby.

Aaron has not seen the ocean in years. 

He forgets about his tired legs and starts to run, grinning excitedly. He comes over the cusp of a hill and in the distance he can see it; the bright, vibrant blue of the sky blending into a darker blue. Crashing waves accented with fluffy white trims of foam. Aaron laughs; breathless, quiet. Then he’s crying. Silent tears burning hot lines down his cheeks. He ignores them and walks towards the beach.

The sand shifts and softens beneath his feet. He looks over this shoulder, watches the prints he leaves behind like secrets pressed into the earth. He should be in a field somewhere, alone and miserable, but instead he is here, with the world feeling bigger than it ever has, breathing in possibility with each lungful of air. Aaron clenches a fist like he can hold his own destiny in it.

He walks to the edge of the water, lets it lick at his feet. Colder than he expected. The chill is welcome to his tired soles, and Aaron stays in the edge of the waves as he walks along the beach. Cliffs start to rise from the ground the further he goes, until there’s a whole wall of them, impossibly tall. And along the base, flowers.

Aaron steps closer. He’s never seen flowers like this. White and yellow, a whole cluster of them growing on a grassy patch beneath the cliffs. Aaron crouches down and breathes in the fresh scent of them. 

“May I?” he asks, and the flowers bob. He reaches down to pick one, and as he does, the earth starts to shake.

It’s a rumble that grows in intensity. From where he’s pulled the flower, a crack in the ground starts. It moves towards the cliffs, spreading wider, and then begins to climb up the rock face. Aaron watches with awe as the cliffs in front of him make a painful grinding noise, then start to shift apart. The vibrations send him back on his ass, and he stares slack jawed as a path appears where there was only cliff face a moment ago.

All the flowers point urgently towards the path. 

Aaron tucks the flower he picked into his hair, and steps into the opening, nervous it’s a trick and the walls will close on him. They stay open. There’s scratches along the walls like fingernails. He traces his own fingers over them. A shiver runs down his spine and he shrugs jerkily, trying to shake it out. 

Then he sees it. Carved into the rock. A name. _Hades_. So this is the entrance to the underworld, then. How curious it should open for him while his heart still beats. 

He glances back at the day he’s leaving behind him. The bright glow of the sun, the salty spray of the sea, the pleasant chill of the breeze, all his flowers and trees and plants. He loves it all so, but he knows if - when - Tilda catches him, that’s it. He’ll never have a chance of freedom again. But no one goes to the underworld. It’s simply not done.

Not until today. 

Aaron bares his teeth, determined. His flowers led him here, and against all odds, he’s unafraid as he stands at the mouth of Hades. His fear of his mother greater than that of any underworld deity. That starts his feet forward, as he leaves the surface world behind and descends into the dark.

*

The tunnels are dark, but there’s bioluminescent moss growing on the walls. With Aaron’s encouragement, the growth spreads, giving him a pathway of dim light to walk by. He thinks perhaps if anyone who is not dead travels down here, they might die of boredom by the time they reach Hades, because it’s a long walk with very little of interest. 

Aaron is exhausted by the time the tunnel opens up into a wider cave, staggering over his feet. He pushes himself the last steps and then his exhaustion is forgotten as he takes in the _size_ of this new cavern. The ceiling is so high his eyes can’t make it out. After the claustrophobia of the tunnel, the space feels like an excess. Aaron can hear running water and he makes his way towards it.

“Hey, hey! Putain. What are you doing down here?”

Aaron starts at the sound of the voice. He turns his head, and some ways up the river a tall man with dark hair is striding towards him rather angrily. Aaron stands his ground. He does not let the fact he only comes to the man’s chest intimidate him. 

“Merde! You’re alive. How did you even get here?”

“That tunnel,” Aaron says, too tired to argue.

“The side door… How’d you get in?”

“The flowers let me in,” Aaron says, and when the man scoffs, he takes the one from his hair and holds it in his palm. “This one specifically.”

The man is quiet for a moment before he says: “Well, you need to leave.”

“No.”

“Non? Do you know where you are? The living do not walk here.”

“Yet here I am, on my feet, and here you are.”

“I am a god.”

“So am I.”

“You- You definitely should not be here then. Trespassers are not welcome.”

“I’m not trespassing. I’m visiting.”

“Visiting without an invitation is trespassing.”

“The way opened for me. That seems like invitation enough. Who are you, anyway?”

“I could ask you the same.”

“But you didn’t, and I asked first, so I would appreciate an answer.”

The man’s expression flickers, dim amusement struggling to make its way to the surface before he hides it behind annoyance again.

“Jean,” he says eventually. “I am the ferryman of the dead. Emphasis on _dead_.”

“Aaron,” Aaron says, ignoring his tone. “So you can give me a lift across the river?”

“Did you not hear what I just said?”

“You say so many things, I’ve started to tune them out.”

Jean growls, and his face shifts. Not the expression, but the actual shape of it. Like a flicker of candlelight throwing shadows. Aaron can see the shape of the skull, the hollow of the eyes. Then he blinks and it’s just the man’s face again. A little gaunt, but handsome. 

“This is not a pleasure cruise. I am working.” Jean turns and starts to walk away. Aaron jogs after him to catch up with his long legs. 

“So you’ll be crossing anyway. Let me join.” The further they go, the colder Aaron starts to feel. Then he sees them. They bleed out of the darkness. Human forms, but wispy like smoke. Some of them are crying, wailing. They grab for Jean as he passes. He shakes them off. They grab for Aaron and while their grip is not solid, it feels like ice. “What is this?”

“ _They_ ,” Jean says. “Are the souls that could not afford their passage across.”

“You charge the dead?”

“Uh, yeah, it’s a job, not a charity.”

“So, what, they just sit here for eternity?”

“For part of it. I take them across eventually.”

“This is inhumane.”

“I'm not a human.”

“Is it not enough that they have died?”

“Listen, kid, I don’t tell you how to do your job. Whatever that may be.”

“I am not a child!”

“Non? But you are so very petite.” Jean grins, and Aaron takes a moment to fantasise about shoving him into the river. “This is the way things are.”

Aaron looks down, and it is not the desperate faces and clutching hands that catch his attention, but a little girl with her arms around her knees. Aaron can make out the shape of her but not the features of her face. She is crying softly.

“Hey.” He leans down and she tilts her blank face towards him. Aaron takes one of the flowers from his hair and offers it to her. A flicker of a face appears; large eyes, damp and curious, before it’s gone again. She takes the flower. He turns back to Jean. “Children? As if it were not cruelty enough for them to die so young.”

“If their parents do not send the coin, that is their fault.”

“She’s coming with me.”

“She can’t leave.”

“I’m not leaving. I’m crossing, and she’s coming with me. Ah! Close your mouth. You either stand here and argue all day, or you take me across and are rid of me. If this is, as you say, a _job_ and not a charity, it wouldn’t do for you to waste all day arguing with me, hm?”

One of Jean’s eyebrows quirks.

“Oh. He is going to have a headache with you,” Jean says. He doesn’t expand on the who. “Alright, oh valiant one. Do you have payment?”

“I don’t have coin.”

“Then you don’t-“

“But I have a lot of fruit,” Aaron says, twisting his makeshift sling so Jean can see the contents. “And I imagine you don’t get much of it down here.”

He can tell by Jean’s hungry expression he’s right.

“Real fruit? From the living world?”

“Yes. You can take what you want, but you take me and the girl.”

“I’m risking my ass if I do this.”

“Say I brought payment. You were just doing your job.”

Jean looks skittish. His eyes skirt to the side, eying the boat and the river, before they flick back to Aaron. It’s a moment before he says anything, but finally, he nods.

“Okay.” Aaron empties the fruit into Jean’s arms and then crouches to lift the girl. Lifting her is not quite like lifting a physical being. He can feel a suggestion of pressure, like something very light in his arms, but he also feels like he’s trying to grasp smoke. He climbs into the boat and sets her on the bench beside him. 

Jean steps in after them. He takes a bite from an apple and stores the rest of his bounty in a chest slid beneath one of the other benches. 

“Mm. I haven’t had surface fruit in so long,” he says. Aaron says nothing, looks at him pointedly until he finishes the apple and collects his oar. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Aaron continues to say nothing, because he does not.

*

It takes longer than he expected to cross the river, and he starts to feel some sympathy for Jean by the time they’re halfway. He’s rowing hard, the strong muscles of his arms flexing with each stroke, his brow glistening with sweat. He may be free from the glare of the sun down here, but it’s still tiring labour like digging the fields was. 

“How long have you been doing this?”

“Too long,” Jean says. In contrast to his appearance he doesn’t sound out of breath. 

Aaron hums. His arm is cold and starting to numb where the spirit of the little girl grips it, but she is afraid, so he doesn’t move it away. 

“The god of the underworld,” Aaron says. “What’s his name?”

“You can ask him yourself. If you make it that far.”

“What does that mean?”

“Exactly what it sounds like.”

“Are you not taking me there?”

“I’m taking you to the entrance. There are other obstacles.”

“To keep the dead in?”

“To keep the living out. This is not the place for you.”

Aaron thinks that there has never been a place for him, but that has not stopped him existing in those places anyway. 

Eventually the boat bumps against the far shore. Aaron climbs out of the boat, then reaches back to help the girl out, and then she is gone, dissolved from between his fingers.

“Where did she go?”

“To be sorted into her afterlife.”

“There’s more than one?” 

“Depending on how you lived, yes.” Jean presses the oar into the bank and shifts the boat back out into the water.

“Thank you for the lift,” Aaron says.

“Good luck,” Jean says, drawing his hood up until his face is obscured in darkness.

*

“Fuck,” Aaron says, as he discovers exactly what Jean meant by _obstacles_. The creature before him is a towering dog, three times the size of the largest dog he’s ever seen, and he looks down at Aaron with six eyes. A pair in each of his three identical heads. Aaron says, again, with feeling: “Fuck.”

The heads descend on him in a rush. Fear makes his blood chill, but he stays rooted on the spot. The heads butt and snap at each other in their attempt to reach him, before the centre head pushes forward. He sniffs aggressively, and Aaron feels the tug of air around him, the chill of a big, wet nose against his forehead. Dog slabber drips on his arms and he grimaces.

“Hey, boy,” he says, voice soft, a little shaky. “It’s okay. I’m not a threat.” 

He holds out his arms, wrists up, so the other two heads can sniff him. All he can hear is the loud snuffling of three noses.

“There. Good boy.” A whooshing sound, so similar to his mother bringing the switch down on him that for a moment he floods with a panic response. He realises, when the moment passes, that it’s just the noise of the big dog’s tail wagging. “Oh. You are a good boy.”

Twin tongues lick up his arms, while the third licks his face. It’s wet, and sticky, and kind of disgusting, but Aaron is just so relieved it’s not teeth instead. He presses his fingers into the necks of the heads on either side and rubs under their chins. The whooshing sound picks up pace. He nuzzles his forehead against the side of the middle head’s muzzle. The dog pants, happy and excited. He bounces away from Aaron and runs in a few playful circles.

“Oh, you are such a good boy, aren’t you? You just look scary, but you’re a perfect puppy.” The dog barks again and play bows. “Can you take me to your master, boy? Is he far?”

Tail still wagging aggressively, the dog runs three circles around Aaron, then darts ahead. He looks back over his shoulder to make sure Aaron is following. Aaron is, albeit a lot slower on his much shorter legs. 

The dog, full of bounding energy, runs ahead, then circles back to Aaron, then runs ahead, over and over again, until they reach the large doors of a castle. He pads back to walk by Aaron’s side now, panting lightly. With some effort, Aaron manages to push the door open, and the dog disappears down the corridor and into one of the rooms. Aaron hears a crash, metal rattling on the ground, someone crying out.

“Cerberus, you great oaf! What are you doing away from your post? No. Off. Off, I said! Ugh, you’re slobbering all over me, you mangy mutt.”

“That’s not very nice,” Aaron says, stepping into the doorway. It’s a dining room. A large stone banquet table stretching the length of it, covered in different foods. There’s only one chair, though. A tall, large thing at the end of the table. On the floor next to it, among spilled wine and grapes and cheese, under the weight of Cerberus’ excited form, is the god of the underworld.

He doesn’t paint quite as impressive a picture as Aaron thought he would. 

He looks towards Aaron with a shocked expression. He is undeniably handsome, but it’s somewhat impacted by how tired he looks. Sunken eyes, underlined with dark shadows. Chapped lips. Hollow cheeks. His skin is pale as marble beneath the dark shock of his hair. 

“You-!” He struggles for words for a moment. “What are you doing here? How did you even get here?” 

“Walked,” Aaron said, because it is mostly true. The pale of the man’s cheeks flushes with two hot red circles. 

“The living can not just walk into Hades.”

“Yeah, people keep telling me that, yet here I am.”

The god of the underworld puffs his cheeks out in indignant rage. He looks like a puffer fish. Aaron presses his lips hard together so he does not laugh. Remembers he has come to ask a favour, and it would probably be unwise to insult the man who he wants it from. 

“Why did you let him past?” He looks to Cerberus, who simply licks his face in response. He pushes the dog away and looks back to Aaron. “You shall leave swiftly, or I will make it so you are no longer living.”

Cerberus, rebuffed, bounces his way back over to Aaron and stands towering beside him.

“Traitor,” the underworld god says. Aaron smiles and pats Cerberus’ leg.

“I am Aaron, son of Tilda,” he says, ignoring the threats. “God of flowers and vegetation. I come seeking a favour.”

“I am Kevin, god of the dead, queen of the underworld, and I owe favours to no one.” Kevin stands and brushes himself down. 

“It is not a favour owed, but one requested. None of the gods dare step in the underworld-“

“Oh, so you are aware. You’ve purposefully chosen to go against that then. Right, good to know.”

“Can I finish?”

“I don’t know, can you?”

“I see why they stay away now. You’re insufferable.”

“Me? You come into _my_ home, you trick _my_ dog-“

“I didn’t trick him! I just gave him a little attention. Maybe if you didn’t have him just standing guard all day-“

“You’re telling me how to care for my own dog?”

“Yeah, maybe someone should.”

“Out. Get out. You will have no favours from me you rude, arrogant, minuscule-“

“Hey!”

“Get out!”

“Please,” Aaron says, and there is so much pain, so much raw desperation in his plea. “Please. I have been travelling for days. I am so tired. I just want somewhere I can be safe for a while.”

“I doubt there is little on the surface that is of more threat to you than most in my lair.”

“There’s my mother,” Aaron admits, voice soft. He holds his arms out. Let’s Kevin see the bruises, the finger prints from too tight grips, the lines from beatings with the switch, the old scars where Tilda went too fierce on him. “I have run away, and if she finds me, she will take me back, and I will be trapped in a life that is worse than death.”

Kevin looks at him for a long time. Aaron dips his head, embarrassed to be bearing his vulnerabilities, to be admitting to this stranger just how afraid he really is.

“You can rest tonight,” Kevin says. “We’ll discuss this more tomorrow. I hope you have food with you. Anything here is just for those of this realm. You’ll be tied to me if you eat it- that’s not an invitation, so don’t even look at that table.” 

Aaron’s eyes flick from the table back to Kevin with a wry smile at his intention being caught. He blinks, faux innocence.

“I would never, my Lord.”

“Your face may be sweet, but I have no trust for you. I’m extending my hospitality. Appreciate it.”

“You think my face is sweet?” Aaron grins brightly, and the two circles of red appear in Kevin’s pale cheeks again. 

“I’ll show you to a room,” he says, through grit teeth. He storms past Aaron, the dark material of his cloak billowing behind him. Aaron looks at Cerberus, who snuffles damply. “And you! You get back to your post.”

Cerberus whines.

“ _Now.”_

With one final bark of protest, Cerberus bounds back down the hall. Kevin sighs; a small, tired sound Aaron thinks he’s probably not supposed to hear. He leads the way up an extravagant and sprawling staircase.

“If you don’t have any guests, why do you have so many rooms?” Aaron asks. “Do you not live alone?”

“I do.”

“Seems like a waste of space.”

“Remember what I said about appreciating my hospitality? Insulting my home is not that.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you sound like you mean it, too.”

Aaron laughs and picks up his pace so he’s just behind Kevin’s shoulder. Kevin stops at a door and pushes it open to reveal a big room, a four poster bed dominating most of it with rich, red curtains around it. The bedsheets are black silk. 

“Colourful,” Aaron says, and sees Kevin grimace. 

“I trust it will be sufficient enough for you to rest for tonight,” he says. “Don’t go wandering.”

Then he closes the door with a bang behind him. 

Aaron rolls his eyes at the drama of it. He goes first to the window and looks out, but there’s not much of a view. The dark surrounding the castle means he can’t see very far. He sits cross legged on the bed, which is softer than he expected, and eats the rest of his fruit. Despite the grandeur of the place, it is so sparse and cold. A gilded cage. What a lonely existence. 

_Still, a cage protects those on the inside as much as it does those on the outside,_ Aaron thinks as he lays himself down. There’s a musky, earthy scent to the sheets that is comforting in its familiarity. Aaron sleeps and he does not remember his dreams.

*

When Aaron comes downstairs the next morning, Kevin is on his way out the door.

“You’re going out?”

“I have duties to attend to.”

“Can I come?”

“I- no- why? Why would you want to?”

“I’d like to see more of the place. I won’t be in the way.”

Kevin’s jaw pulses as he clenches it, and Aaron knows he’s trying to think of a good reason to say no, so he doesn’t give him the chance.

“Great. Time’s a wasting. Let’s go.”

Kevin’s expression pinches with irritation, but Aaron is already sliding past him and out the door. Kevin slams it behind them and strides past Aaron on his long legs. Aaron’s almost certain he catches a brief smirk when he has to jog to catch up.

They head back in the direction that Cerberus led Aaron from, and his three heads woof at the sight of them. Aaron starts to gravitate towards him before Kevin’s hand on his bicep stops him.

“Don’t distract him. He’s working.”

“Let go of me,” Aaron says, tugging his arm. Kevin releases him immediately and his arms disappear back under his cloak. “It’s not fair you make him stand there all the time.”

“Not _all_ the time, but that is his purpose.”

“Psh.” Aaron folds his arms and sends a sympathetic glance back to Cerberus. Cerberus whines, all six of his ears drooping.

They walk through an early morning mist in silence, until three tall shapes rise out of it. As they get closer, Aaron can see they’re podiums, with three figures sat behind them.

“Good morning, Lady Kevin,” says the one on the right. A smiling man with a warm voice like sweet honey. Aaron glances at Kevin and catches him trying to fight a smile down.

“Good morning, Jeremy. Thea.”

A tall, dark, fierce looking beauty of a woman on the left makes a vague sound of acknowledgement.

“Fuck you, too,” a shorter man in the middle says. Kevin’s smile is more of a grimace now.

“Riko,” he says, clipped. Aaron tilts his head, curious.

“Uh, Kevin, this one isn’t dead,” Jeremy says. He leans forward over his podium and gazes curiously down on Aaron. His eyes glow a pretty gold colour, like a sky just before sunset. “And he’s a god!”

“He’s a thorn in my side I’ve yet to pry free,” Kevin says, and Aaron frowns, offended.

“ _He_ has a name, and a voice,” Aaron says. He feels very small beneath the looming podiums, but juts his chin out defiantly and stares up at them. Riko snorts. Thea looks at him with an expression that hides any sign of emotion. Jeremy continues to smile pleasantly. 

“And a good soul, thus far. Not that you’ll ever need it.”

“Excuse me?”

“You won’t die, so you won’t ever need to pass our judgement.”

“Judgement?”

“Why is he here, Kevin?” Thea says, voice cold and sharp as a blade.

“An excellent question,” Kevin says. Riko scoffs. Kevin’s eyes narrow. “But while he is here, he’s my guest, so you shall extend him the same respect you extend me.”

“Not much, then,” Riko says, and suddenly Kevin seems larger, seems like he’s spreading, dark aura rising off of him like waves, billowing smoke, draining the warmth from the air around them. 

“A reminder, Riko, you sit as a judge because I allow it, but if you are tiring of your position, I’m sure I could always find space in Tartarus for you.”

Riko’s lips press together in a tight, thin line. Thea raises her eyebrows. Jeremy’s golden smile falters, vanishes briefly, then flashes back, a little strained at the edges.

“I thought so,” Kevin says, then with surprising kindness he turns to Aaron and says: “They judge the souls of the dead and decide which part of the afterlife they’re sent to based on how they lived.”

“Oh,” says Aaron, a little afraid of Kevin for the first time after his display. “Okay.”

“Not the most fun job, but hey, someone’s gotta do it,” Jeremy says. “Oh, wait. Are you the one that brought the surface fruit down?”

“Yes.”

“Aw man, that was amazing. Jean and I had a picnic with it last night. Freshest fruit I’ve ever had. Thanks for that.”

“Ah. It was all I had.”

“...Jean ferried you across in exchange for _fruit_?” Kevin says. Jeremy’s face flickers with something like guilt, except he’s still smiling, a cheeky little glint to his eyes that kind of cancels it out.

“It was real good fruit, to be fair,” he says, and Kevin presses his lips together hard enough that they turn white. 

“Come on,” he says, and takes off again. Kevin, it seems, doesn’t know how to walk slow.

“It was nice to meet you, Aaron. Enjoy your visit!”

Aaron waves back over his shoulder at Jeremy, then runs to catch up with Kevin.

“If you hate that guy so much why does he work here?”

“Long story.”

“I have time.”

“Personal story.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Besides, the judges need a balanced view. Jeremy would go too easy on everyone. Riko would go too hard. Thea is ruthless, but fair. The three of them come to the fairest conclusion.”

Aaron hums, taking two steps for every one of Kevin’s.

“Tartarus. I’ve heard of that. It’s where the Titans are imprisoned, right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you actually send people there?”

“Rarely. Only the very worst.”

“Where’s it at?”

“What?”

“Where’s it at?”

“You won’t see it. It’s buried far beneath this realm. You ask a lot of questions.”

“Yes.” Aaron smiles. Kevin glances at him, then away, cheeks tinted pink. 

They head down a winding path into a meadow full of stretching sepia fields. Aaron squints, feeling like he’s looking through smoke, but it’s simply the lack of colour. The whole landscape washed out in a dust brown. There are people in the fields, but they don’t appear to be doing much work. Mostly they seem to be crying. Aaron moves a little closer to Kevin.

“What is this place?” 

“Mourning fields.”

“Why are they crying?”

“They wasted their lives on unrequited love. They didn’t do anything worth punishing, but they didn’t achieve anything worth celebrating, and so this is their middle ground.”

“This is depressing.”

“Yes. It’s kind of in the name.”

“Do they just work the fields all day?”

“No. They have their afterlife as those on the surface have their lives. They harvest food for themselves the same way the living do.”

“Except their lives are restricted by the circumstances you set.”

“You say that as if the living do not have lives also restricted by circumstance.” 

Aaron wants to argue, but the more he thinks about it, the less of an argument he has to stand on. He looks at some of the hollowed faces as they pass; tear stained, twisted in pain and grief. His chest aches. Is that what he looked like working his mother’s fields?

“It’s so dull,” he says.

“That would be the lack of sun.”

It hits Aaron like a shock, and once he’s aware of it, he doesn’t know how he didn’t notice before. He had just assumed the sun was hidden behind the mist, but here the dust brown blur of the horizon _is_ the sky, and it is barren of any sun. 

“That would be it,” he says, and feels a little homesick. Not for any home he’s ever had, but simply for the world he’s left behind. “So what are you actually doing?”

“Rounds.”

“What for?”

“Do you ever run out of questions?”

“Keep answering me. Maybe you’ll find out.”

Kevin’s expression pinches in a way that’s becoming very familiar to Aaron, and he grins brightly at the sight of it. As annoyed as Kevin looks, there’s none of the smoky aura coming out of him, so Aaron guesses he can’t be that angry. Yet.

“I should be asking you questions,” Kevin says.

“I never said you couldn’t.”

“Why are you here?”

“I already told you.”

“There are many places you could run to.”

“There are many places I could be followed. This feels like a certainty.”

“You speak like we are impenetrable.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Considering how easily you walked in, it seems not. I’m going to have to reassess security.”

“You have plenty of security.”

“And yet.”

“Do you believe in fate?”

“I’ve had enough unpleasant dinner parties with them I’d rather forget, but yes.”

“What?”

“The Fates. You are quite ignorant to be out in the world alone.”

Aaron feels his face heat, and he bares his teeth.

“I am not ignorant!”

“You know nothing of my realm and yet you still stride into it as if it were your right. Ignorant is only one word for you. Perhaps foolhardy is another.”

“Fuck you.”

Kevin smiles. A thin, unhappy smile that does not reach his eyes. Aaron silently fumes as the meadow evens out and they step through a forest of grey, dead looking trees. He touches one of the trees and life pulses beneath his palm, spreading colour into the tree. It fades when Aaron lifts his hand.

“What are you doing?” Kevin asks.

“I was trying to heal them.”

“They’re not sick. They are of this world.”

Aaron sighs. He flexes his fingers, and vines circle his wrist and grow up his arm like a pretty bracelet. Flowers bloom along them. He looks longingly at the colour of them. 

“It’s so bland.”

“Life would not be special if death were the same,” Kevin says. Aaron sighs again. “Why did you ask?”

“What?” 

“If I believed in fate.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Have I finally silenced you?”

“No.” Aaron’s cheeks puff up, indignant. He exhales in a rush. “I just know you’ll mock me, and I don’t feel like extending the invitation.”

“Maybe I won’t.”

“You will.”

“What if I give you my word?”

“What worth is there to the word of a death god?”

“Hm.” Kevin looks away. He cuts a striking side profile; all sharp lines and handsome angles. “What, indeed.”

Aaron is quiet for a long moment, just watching Kevin, the sad furrows of his expression. 

“I think I was fated to come here,” he admits quietly. “It felt like I was guided here.”

“Who led you?”

“The earth,” Aaron says, flushing at admitting it out loud. Kevin doesn’t laugh like he expected. He just hums thoughtfully and keeps walking.

Kevin’s rounds take them through an area of similar fields, though they’re more a misty grey than the sepia of the Mourning Fields. The people are not quite so sad, but they are not quite so anything. Vague, blank, flickering forms in the shape of people. 

“What’s this place called?”

“Asphodel Meadows.”

“And these people?”

“Mediocre. Indifferent. Souls that had no particular impact of any kind in their lives.”

“Not to anyone?”

“Not in a way that matters when it comes to judgement.”

“Harsh.”

“We can’t fit everyone in Elysium.”

“I’m guessing that’s where the good go.”

“You’re catching on.”

“Can we go there?”

“No, but I will show you.” Kevin changes direction and they cut across a few fields, a stretch of meadow with dull flowers sadly bobbing their heads, over a small rock wall and down a steep slope towards a stretch of water. “Those islands there.”

“They have sunlight,” Aaron says, giddy to see the sun again.

“Yes. The isles are a reward. They are much more pleasant than any of the other areas.”

They stand beside each other, and a breeze blows in off the water and billows Kevin’s cloak against Aaron’s arm. It tickles. He huffs a small laugh, and Kevin glances down at him like he’s a curiosity.

“What?”

“You are always so… bright.”

“Bright?”

“Yes.”

“Expand?”

“I don’t think I will.”

“Ass.”

Kevin laughs. The sound surprises Aaron. He expected something cold, perhaps even a little grating, but Kevin’s laugh is low and warm, a rumble of amusement. It makes the pit of Aaron’s stomach feel heated. He blinks up at him. 

“You can stay another night,” Kevin says. “Then you must leave.”

*

Kevin continues to tell Aaron the same thing the next couple of evenings, but never actually follows through. Aaron spends his second day wandering around the castle. He comes across a library that is full of books documenting human history, and loses a few hours flicking through them. Kevin finds him on a chaise surrounded by books and his expression goes soft and strange.

“What?” Aaron says, but Kevin just shakes his head.

“Dinner,” he says, and leaves the room.

Kevin has harpies fetch food from the surface for Aaron. Fruit, vegetables, cheeses, bread, honey, milk, water. More than he could ever eat in one sitting. More than he could eat in several days. Despite the fact they’re the only ones at the ridiculously large table, Kevin has summoned a second chair and sets Aaron’s place at the far end, keeps a significant stretch of space between Aaron’s food and his own. 

“It’s hard to have a conversation like this,” Aaron comments, having to raise his voice for it to carry down the table.

“That’s the idea.”

Aaron doesn’t take it too seriously, since Kevin is still the one that invites him to eat together, even if he doesn’t explicitly say the words.

On his third day he packs a basket of food, takes a book from the library and visits Cerberus at his post. He fusses over him for a while, before leaning against his side to read. Cerberus is content enough with the company to let him.

“Still here?” 

Aaron looks up to see Jean making his way up from the river.

“Still here,” he says. “Going to see Jeremy?”

“Oui. You made a good impression on him.”

“He seems nice. Here.” Aaron opens the basket towards Jean. “Help yourself.”

“What is this bribe for?”

“I never bribed you. I just paid you for your service, as you requested. This isn’t for anything. I simply have more food than I know what to do with.”

“But you haven’t been up again.”

“Kevin had it brought down for me.”

“Kevin…” Jean blinks. Then he laughs.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he says.

“You found something amusing.”

“Just surprising. That you’re getting along. Kevin can be difficult.”

“I’ve noticed,” Aaron says dryly, and Jean laughs again. At Aaron’s further prompting, he loads his arms with food. 

“Merci beaucoup.”

“Tell Jeremy I said hi.”

“I will.”

Aaron has lunch and finishes his book. Cerberus lies his heads down beside him and Aaron makes sure he gives them all equal head scratches and chin rubs. He dozes off against Cerberus' side and wakes with a gentle touch to his arm. 

Aaron starts so violently at the touch he spooks Cerberus and sends him running, which sends Aaron sprawling onto his back on the ground. He breathes hard, automatically going into fight or flight, bringing his arms above his head to shield his face, waiting for Tilda’s blows. None come. Someone clears their throat.

Aaron lowers his arms, and Kevin is standing over him with an expression that might be concern. He’s not sure what concern looks like on Kevin’s face. Whatever this is, it’s all rumpled and eyebrows drawing in together.

“You shouldn’t sleep here,” Kevin says, his voice soft and mild. Aaron pushes himself up on his elbows, still a little disorientated. Kevin starts to move his hand, hesitates, then extends it to Aaron. His fingers are surprisingly warm as they close around Aaron’s and help pull him to his feet.

“Thank you,” he says. He glances up through his eyelashes, feeling a little awkward and shy at his overreaction. Kevin touches a curl that’s fallen forward on his forehead as though to sweep it back, but then draws his hand away abruptly.

“I was wondering where you were.”

“Miss me?” Aaron smiles. It feels a little stiff, but some of the tension eases. Kevin scoffs and rolls his eyes, and Aaron’s smile widens into something more genuine. 

“Wondered what trouble you were getting into.”

“No trouble,” Aaron says, as Cerberus comes back to his side and one of his snouts nuzzles Aaron’s cheek apologetically. Aaron reaches up and pats his neck. “Just visiting my best boy, wasn’t I? Yes I was! There’s my good boy.”

“ _Yours_?”

Aaron doesn’t answer, just casts his gaze sideways at Kevin and grins pointedly as Cerberus’ heads butt each other in their excitement to all lick his cheek. Kevin frowns deeply. 

“Traitor,” he says to Cerberus, who shows no sign of acknowledgement. 

“You could be my good boy too, if you were nicer,” Aaron says, and delights in the way Kevin’s cheeks instantly flush. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, but apparently Aaron has finally rendered him speechless, because in the end he just closes it with a huff and strides off towards the castle. 

Aaron giggles, presses three quick kisses to Cerberus’ heads, grabs his basket, and runs after Kevin. As he’s gaining on him, Kevin whistles sharp and quick, and Cerberus overtakes Aaron in his hurry to catch up. They’re halfway back by the time Aaron falls in step with Kevin, panting as he jogs.

“Cerberus is coming with us?”

“Cerberus is coming with _me_ ,” Kevin says. “You just happen to be following.”

“You came to get me.”

“I came to warn you not to sleep there.” Kevin stubbornly avoids looking at him. Aaron runs ahead and turns to walk backwards in front of him instead.

“You’re grumpier than usual.”

“I think I’ve been more than accommodating.”

“You can be accommodating and grumpy at the same time.” 

“Your lack of gratitude is not charming,” Kevin says, and brushes past Aaron. Aaron stops and turns to watch his back. He hadn’t considered his teasing might come off as ungrateful, and he feels a brief buzz of guilt. 

When he gets back to the house, he finds Kevin in the dining room. There’s a space set for him halfway down the table this time. Aaron raises a questioning brow.

“You complained you couldn’t irritate me with your words from the far side of the room,” Kevin says. He looks down at his own plate with a frown, but the tips of his ears are red. Aaron crosses to his side and rests a hand lightly on Kevin’s shoulder, feels Kevin tense beneath his touch.

“I am grateful,” he says, voice soft and honest. “I appreciate you letting me stay more than I can say.”

Aaron leans down and presses a kiss to Kevin’s cheek, and the skin feels burning beneath his lips. Kevin promptly chokes on his own saliva and coughs until his face is an ugly, blotchy purple red. Aaron smiles and takes his seat.

“How was your day?” He asks, ignoring Kevin’s choking. Kevin takes a long sip of his wine and clears his throat.

“My day?”

“Yes. Did you have a good one?”

“I- Why are you asking?”

“Making conversation. So, did you?”

“Uh. It was okay. I just did the usual rounds, then I looked for you.”

“Did it take you long to find me?”

Kevin shrugs in a noncommittal way that could mean anything. He doesn’t look at Aaron, so Aaron looks at him; watches his careful hands pick grapes from the vine, watches the shift of his furrowed brow, the purse of his lips, the focus of his gaze. 

“Well, I had a nice day hanging out with Cerberus,” Aaron says, glancing down at the dog curled at the side of Kevin’s chair. 

“I wish you’d tell me before you wander outside.”

“So you can keep tabs on me?”

“No. Well, yes, but not- There’s a lot of dangerous creatures down here.”

“I’ve never had any trouble.”

“You’ve been lucky.”

“Besides, Cerberus was with me.”

“I would just feel better if you let me know before you leave.” Aaron starts to get irritated, starts to feel the restraint of control, no longer his mother but now someone else, until Kevin adds, barely audible: “Please.”

The anger melts out of him.

“Okay,” he says. 

“Thank you.”

After dinner, Aaron follows Kevin to the library and trades out his book on architectural advancements for one on medical history. Kevin starts a fire in the large stone fireplace, then sits on the chaise with his own book.

“Can I sit with you for a bit?”

“Uh. Sure.” Kevin tucks himself into the corner of the chaise so Aaron has room to sit against the backrest. Aaron smiles and plops down right beside Kevin, their thighs pressed together in a warm line. 

“Thanks.” Aaron starts to read. He can feel Kevin, tense and stiff beside him, but slowly he relaxes as he gets absorbed into his own book, and soon they’re leaning against each other as they quietly read, warmed by the crackling glow of the fire.

*

“Come in,” Aaron says when he hears a knock on the door. Kevin opens it, then stands in the doorway. He looks around at the flowers and vines Aaron has decorated the room with, then at Aaron, shirtless. Then he promptly turns red and looks at the wall to his left.

“I did not mean to disturb you.”

“No worries, I remain undisturbed.”

“You are undressed.”

“My body is not a shame.”

“I- No- But- I mean-“

“Oh dear, I’ve broken him,” Aaron says, and comes across to stand beside Kevin. Kevin glances at him, then away. “I didn’t think the dead were so prudish.”

“I am not dead.”

“Just dead boring,” Aaron says, and laughs when Kevin turns a frown on him.

“I was going to ask if you would like to take breakfast in the garden, considering your complaints of my table, but now I think I won’t,” Kevin says, turning. 

“Can’t take a little teasing?” When Aaron gets no reply, he says: “I would very much like that.”

“Then you can join me when you’re decent.”

“My body’s not indecent,” Aaron calls after Kevin’s retreating back, but he finishes dressing before he heads down.

The garden, as Kevin calls it, is rather lacklustre. Dull grass and gnarled trees, dark and curling with age. Kevin has spread a blanket out near a small pond with a fountain in the centre. A small cluster of poppies form a semi circle around the blanket.

“Your garden could do with some work,” Aaron says, flowers blooming in the imprints of his footsteps on the grass as he crosses to the blanket. 

“I’m not much of a gardener.”

“I am.” He sits on the blanket and trails his fingers through the grass, bringing more colour to it, summoning daisies up from the ground. He looks up with a smile and finds Kevin watching him with a soft expression. “Set me loose on it.”

“That would please you?”

“Very much so.”

“Then do as you wish.”

“Okay,” Aaron says. “I will.”

*

“No peeking!”

“I am not peeking.”

“Watch the steps.”

“Aaron?”

“Wait, one second… okay, open!” Aaron stands at the foot of the garden, arms spread. What was a dull space this morning is now bursting with colour. Swirling patterns of flowers taking up most of the grass. Trees filled out with leaves and in the centre of the garden, a pretty cherry blossom spiralling pink blossoms to the ground. There’s water lilies on the pond, sunflowers stretching up alongside the garden walls, pretty bushes framing either side of the steps to the house. “What do you think?”

“Uh, wow,” Kevin says, blinking in surprise. He looks around like he can’t quite believe Aaron managed this in one afternoon. 

“I did a lot of poppies because they’re left as offerings to the dead, right? But then I threw in a mixture so it wouldn’t just be poppies because, y’know, boring. I don’t know these ones, but they’re the flowers that let me in.”

“Narcissus,” Kevin says, his voice sounds distant as he continues to look around.

“Huh?”

“Those flowers. Narcissus.”

“Oh! I like them.” Aaron picks one and tucks it into the hair over his ear, before he runs forward and links his arm through Kevin’s. “Come look closer.”

Kevin tenses briefly at his touch before he relaxes and lets Aaron lead him around the garden. Pointing out flowers. Telling him their names. Explaining his vision. 

“And if you crush these bits between your fingers,” he says, plucking some lavender off. “Smell.”

“Oh. That’s nice.”

“Right? Lavender is soothing, so I thought it would be good for how grumpy you are.”

“Hey.”

“This whole corner is herbs, actually. You can season food with them or brew them into teas.”

“These are pretty,” Kevin says, stopping by a rose bush Aaron managed to convince to grow roses of every colour. Kevin’s finger hovers near a petal, but he lowers it without touching.

“You have to watch the thorns with roses.” Aaron deftly slips his fingers to the stem and plucks a red rose. He turns to Kevin and stands on tip toe to slide it behind his ear. Kevin’s cheeks flush with red roses of their own. “There.”

“Ah.” Kevin clears his throat. “Thank you.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes. It looks like you.”

“Uh. I know I wear a lot of flowers in my hair, but I don’t exactly have roots or petals yet.”

“No- That’s not- I mean, it looks how you feel. Bright and warm and pretty… and happy.”

Aaron’s smile softens. His chest does something fluttering and confusing, a little painful.

“And now you have somewhere nice to take your guests,” he says. 

“What guests?”

“I don’t know. Whoever visits you.”

“No one visits me, Aaron.”

“What? I thought you were just saying that because you didn’t want me to stay. You’ve got a big castle full of spare rooms.”

“Unused rooms. The underworld is not a tourist destination.”

“Maybe I’ll start a trend.”

“I hope not,” Kevin says, but he’s withdrawn back into himself. Aaron can see it in his vacant eyes, in the thin line of his mouth. He slides his fingers between Kevin’s and squeezes his hand. 

“Just for us to enjoy, then,” he says. Kevin smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.

*

“Could you get any closer?” Kevin asks when he finds Aaron sat right in front of the fireplace in the library. “You’re going to get singed.”

“I’m cold,” Aaron says. Without the heat of the sun, he’s been finding it hard to deal with the chill in Hades. Kevin sits on the couch and Aaron comes to sit by his side. “How come you’re always so warm?”

“I suppose I’m used to it.”

Aaron presses against Kevin’s side and shivers miserably. Kevin sighs, but then sits forward to remove his cloak. He shakes it out and then wraps it around Aaron like a blanket. The motion brings their faces very close together. Aaron watches as, predictably, Kevin’s cheeks tint red.

“Thank you,” he says. He lays his hand over Kevin’s and presses them both to his chest. Kevin makes a strangled sound. Aaron leans forward and very sweetly kisses his cheek, then links their fingers so his hand can leech the warmth from Kevin’s. Kevin allows him to nuzzle against his chest without a word, but Aaron can feel the tension in his shoulders. “Is this uncomfortable?”

“No,” Kevin says immediately, and Aaron feels him forcing himself to relax. His thumb strokes along the back of Aaron’s hand and Aaron hums in happy encouragement. “Your skin is so beautiful.”

“Mine?”

“Yes.” Kevin draws the fingertips of his free hand along Aaron’s brown arm, tracing constellations over his freckles. Aaron smiles as he watches. Kevin looks almost devoid of colour against him. “So… alive.”

“You’re alive, too,” Aaron says, lifting Kevin’s hand and pressing a kiss to his knuckles. Kevin makes a vague sound, but he’s still staring with affection at Aaron’s arm. At the pale gold of his hairs against the background of his skin. The splatter of freckles that leads up his bicep and curves over his shoulders. “You’re staring.”

“Sorry,” Kevin says, and immediately turns his head away. Aaron touches light fingers to his jaw, guides his face back towards him.

“I didn’t say I minded,” he says, and Kevin inhales sharply. Aaron strokes his thumb over the blush on Kevin’s cheek, down along the curve of his cheekbone. His thumb brushes the corner of Kevin’s mouth and this time Kevin exhales all in a rush. 

“Aaron.”

“Kevin.”

Kevin doesn’t say anything, just presses his face to Aaron’s hair. Aaron tilts his head so their cheeks are together instead, absorbs the lovely warmth from Kevin’s into his own. They stay like that, gently embracing on the chaise, until the warmth draws Aaron to sleep.

When he wakes, Kevin is gone, but the cloak is still tucked around him.

*

“Bonjour. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Brought lunch. Do you get a break?”

“I can take one. Have you been waiting long?”

“Not very long,” Aaron says, sitting on a rock at the edge of the river. Jean brings the boat to the shore and the shimmering spirits filling it are swept off once they step down. Jean checks his boat is secure before coming across to Aaron. 

“Any particular reason for this?”

“No. I didn’t feel like doing rounds with Kevin. I wanted to do something new.”

“Ah, so I am a past time.”

“No.”

“You are just tiring of Kevin’s company and wanted some charming conversation?”

“Oh, yeah, that’s it.” Aaron grins. “I just wanted to hear the musical tones of your voice.”

“Ah, be careful. I am a taken man. You tempt me with your revelry.”

“I would never.”

“Hm.” Jean sits across from them and Aaron opens his basket in offering. “And how are you managing our Lady Kevin?”

“Fine. I think he’s getting more bearable,” Aaron says. He pops a piece of bread in his mouth. Jean raises an eyebrow. Muffled around the bread, Aaron says: “Wha-?”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you sound fond.”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” Aaron says after swallowing. “He lets me stay in his home. He’s kind to me. Of course I am fond of him.”

“Hm. Tread carefully.”

“What do you mean?”

“Kevin is not quite so stoic as he appears, and he has little practice in social nuance-“

“You’re telling me.”

“What is folly to you, may mean more to him.”

“You think me so callous?”

“I think,” Jean says carefully. “You are not of our world, and one day, you may tire of it. You can choose to walk back into the sunlight. Kevin cannot.”

“I have less of a choice than you think,” Aaron says.

“No. Whatever circumstances led you here, you still had the choice to leave. It might be a choice you don’t want to make, but it’s still a choice. Kevin does not have even that,” Jean says. “Something to remember, hm?”

*

Aaron drops his basket when he gets back to the castle and finds Tilda waiting in his room. It lands with a clatter. He tries to back out the door, but it has locked behind him. His fingers are desperate as they pull the handle, scratch against the wood. She slowly approaches him.

“You thought you could escape me? Petulant child. Bastard child. Poison of my womb.”

Aaron presses himself back against the door and slides to the ground, like if he could only make himself small enough she might not see him. It does not work. Her soil stained hand catches in his curls and pulls harshly. He feels some of his hair rip, and his skull burns with bright, hot pain. 

“You are _mine_ , Aaron. You useless, ungrateful, good for nothing stain upon this earth. You are mine and I will work you until your hands blister and bleed, until the sun burns and peels your skin to the bone, until you are worth nothing more than feed to the worms.”

Tilda throws him back and his head hits the wall hard. Aaron’s teeth clatter together. He tastes blood, the copper tang thick in his mouth. He slumps to the floor, the ringing in his ears deafening. She kicks him in his side and he whimpers meekly, tries to curl in on himself but everything hurts and he has so little energy.

“You are a curse upon me,” Tilda says, and kicks him hard in the head.

*

Aaron wakes up with an audible, desperate cry. He’s trembling so hard he can barely push himself up on his shaky limbs. His hand goes to his head, feels around for any mark. He still has the phantom taste of blood in his mouth. A knock at the door makes him start violently.

“Aaron?” Kevin’s voice, barely above a whisper. “Are you okay?”

Aaron sniffs. He is not okay. He does not trust his voice. He does not think he can manage to raise it loud enough to be heard across the room. Instead, he gets out of bed on the unstable legs of a fawn and crosses to the door.

Kevin is lit only by the light of a candle. The flickering of the flame dances across his face, playing weird tricks with the shadows and lines, shifting him between handsome and sinister. Aaron is comforted by the sight of him either way. He sniffs, and for the first time realises he is crying.

“Aaron-? Oh.” Kevin’s hand comes up to his face, then stops, merely hovering beside it. Aaron presses his fingers to the back of Kevin’s hand and guides it to his cheek. Softly, Kevin brushes away his tears. “I heard you cry out.”

Aaron nods, still not trusting his voice. His fingers curl around Kevin’s wrist. Kevin’s body is flush with a sleep warmth that Aaron, cold with shock, is drawn to. He shifts closer and presses his face to Kevin’s chest. Kevin gently wraps an arm around his shoulders.

“Stay with me?” Aaron asks, and hates how small his voice sounds. Hates that fear has followed him even here. Hates how terrified he is that Kevin will say no and take his comfort away.

“Okay.”

They make their way back to Aaron’s bed, and Aaron must be quite a state, for Kevin has said nothing about his state of undress, continues to say nothing as Aaron pulls him close and curls into his chest. His long fingers stroke soothing patterns on Aaron’s back.

“I had a dream my mother had come for me,” Aaron admits after a long stretch. Kevin stirs like he had been drifting asleep.

“No one will take you without your permission,” Kevin says. “I won’t allow it.”

“You done pretending to throw me out then?”

“I think I’ve been done with that for quite some time.”

Aaron huffs a laugh. It’s a damp and thick sound, but it feels nice. It feels warm. He presses a kiss to Kevin’s shoulder and, after a moment, Kevin lightly kisses the top of his head.

“Stay for tonight?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

Aaron fumbles beneath the blanket until he finds Kevin’s hand and interlocks their fingers. He squeezes, and Kevin brushes his thumb along the back of Aaron’s hand. When he sleeps, there are no more nightmares.

*

Aaron blinks awake; hazy, comfortable, warm. He makes a soft sound and shifts to stretch out his back, blinking his eyes open to Kevin’s face. Kevin is watching him with a soft smile. He blushes at being caught, but doesn’t look away.

“You’re like a cat,” Kevin says.

“Meow,” Aaron says, and Kevin laughs. He presses his forehead to Kevin’s cheek and feels the vibration of that laugh move through him. “Good morning.”

“Morning. Did you sleep better?”

“A lot. Thank you.”

“I didn’t do much.”

“You stayed with me.”

“You asked.”

“I thought you didn’t give favours?”

“I think I said I didn’t owe favours. I can still give them.”

Aaron smiles and dots a few kisses over Kevin’s shoulder. Kevin reaches out and tucks some of his hair behind his ear. Aaron catches his wrist, holds his hand in place as he nuzzles his cheek against it.

“You are so beautiful.” It comes out of Kevin in a rush, in a breath, low and whispered like he’s afraid of the words being between them. Aaron smiles warmly and kisses Kevin’s palm. 

“Flatterer.”

“If anything, I do you an injustice,” Kevin says, and Aaron delights in how his cheeks are reddening. “You are an impossibility. There are no words to describe you. I can only use the ones I have available, but they are not enough.”

“Stop,” Aaron says, feeling his own skin start to heat.

“Sorry.” Kevin tries to draw his hand away, but Aaron holds it firm. “I didn’t mean to displease you.”

“I’m not displeased.”

“But-“

“Kevin,” Aaron says, and Kevin falls quiet, looks at him with a hyper focus. Aaron smiles. Then he leans in and kisses him softly on the mouth. When he draws back, Kevin’s lips part in surprise. Aaron brushes his fingers over Kevin’s lower lip. 

“Aaron,” Kevin says, his voice so hoarse it sends heat right through Aaron’s being. “ _Aaron_.”

“If you want to kiss me again, you should,” Aaron says helpfully, and then Kevin’s fingers are cupping his cheek, Kevin is drawing him closer, Kevin’s lips are on his, torn between passion and caution. Aaron slips his arms around Kevin’s neck and holds him close as Kevin tilts his head and traces his tongue along Aaron’s lower lip. Aaron’s whole body tingles pleasantly.

When their lips part, Kevin presses his forehead to Aaron’s, and Aaron can feel the softness of his breath against his lips. He runs his fingers through Kevin’s hair, trails them along his scalp, and Kevin sighs.

“Aaron.”

“Have you forgotten your other words?”

“Feels like it,” Kevin says with a breathless laugh. Aaron kisses him again, and again, rolling them so he’s sprawled over Kevin’s chest, hand pressed over his heart, feeling the hard beat of it against his palm. 

“Your heart is beating so fast.”

“Yes.”

“Because of me?”

“Who else?”

“Why?”

“You make me feel alive.”

“You are alive.”

“I don’t always feel it.”

“I used to feel like that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Ironic I haven’t felt it since coming down to the underworld,” Aaron says, smiling as he traces the curve of Kevin’s ear. 

“My favourite trespasser,” Kevin says, and kisses Aaron’s laughing mouth. “How about I bring breakfast to you this morning?”

“Spoil me like this and I’ll never leave.”

“What a tragedy.” Kevin lifts Aaron’s hand and kisses the back of it before he gets out of bed. He stops at the door to look back at Aaron with a smile, then heads out. A few minutes after he leaves, Cerberus comes thundering through the door.

“Good morning, my sweet boy,” Aaron says, as Cerberus’ paws slip over the floor trying to stop himself. He pads over to the bedside and all his heads stretch down to lick Aaron. Aaron presses his fingers into Cerberus’ fur and rubs his chest. Kevin comes back with food and finds Cerberus lying by Aaron’s side of the bed, three chins resting on the edge as Aaron takes turns petting his heads.

“He ran so fast when I told him he could go up and see you.”

“Because I’m his favourite,” Aaron says. Kevin sighs.

“You might be,” he says, with such an abundance of woe in his tone Aaron laughs. Kevin climbs back into bed beside him and gives his cheek a shy, chaste kiss.

They eat with arms pressed together, Aaron slipping Cerberus scraps when he thinks Kevin isn’t looking, and Kevin giving him disapproving looks because he definitely notices.

“What would you like to do today?”

“Don’t you have to do your rounds?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I… don’t really have to do them,” Kevin admits, sheepish. “I usually just like to get out of the castle, but I would rather spend the day with you.”

“Hm. Can we take Cerberus down to the water near the isles? I’d like to see the sun today.”

“Of course,” Kevin says. He cleans up after breakfast and leaves Aaron to dress. Aaron and Cerberus meet him at the front door, and Kevin offers Aaron his arm. Aaron takes it with a smile and they head down the path together.

“Morning, Kevin! And Aaron. Nice to see you again.”

“Hello, Jeremy,” Aaron says pleasantly. Jeremy is grinning at the sight of them. Thea raises one brow. Riko glances at them once, then purposefully glances away. Kevin nods in greeting, but doesn’t pause to speak to them. 

Kevin’s brought a blanket, and he spreads it on the bank for them to sit on. Aaron plays fetch with Cerberus until he’s tired out, then flops down on his back, stretching out languidly and humming at the warm caress of the sun on his skin. He opens his eyes when Kevin sits beside him. Kevin reaches out and brushes a curl from his forehead. 

“You look happy.”

“I am happy,” Aaron says, taking Kevin’s arm and tugging him down beside him. 

“You remind me of the sun. Like a beam of pure sunlight shaped into a person.”

“You wouldn’t be able to look directly at me then, and wouldn’t that be a shame?”

“An unbearable shame.”

“I didn’t realise you were full of so many pretty words, my lady.”

“You’re very inspiring.” Kevin kisses Aaron’s cheek, and Aaron tilts his head until their lips meet. They kiss for a while, and then Aaron naps with his head on Kevin’s lap, Kevin’s fingers in his hair as he reads a book. He wakes warm and groggy, but feeling safe and comfortable.

“Hey you,” Kevin says. Aaron smiles sleepy soft up at him. “Good nap?”

“The best.” Aaron nuzzles his face into Kevin’s stomach and Kevin’s fingers brush softly against his cheek. 

Aaron walks Cerberus along the edge of the water to work the sleep stiffness from his limbs as Kevin shakes out and folds up the blanket. They come back to Kevin’s slide and Aaron takes his hand.

“Ready to go home?”

Kevin’s expression softens, all the hardness melting from it. His eyes look so incredibly green as they catch the light of the sun. 

“Home,” he says, like the word feels foreign in his mouth. “Yes. Let’s go home.”

*

Kevin spends the next few nights with Aaron in his room. Limbs tangled, skin pressed to skin, sharing sleepy kisses and soft smiles as they fall asleep. Aaron wakes with Kevin’s warmth pressed against his back, and in the security of Kevin’s arms, his promise starts to feel like a certainty: no one will take Aaron from him.

Aaron smiles and takes Kevin’s hand where his arm is thrown over him. He lifts the knuckles to his mouth and dots a kiss against each one. Kevin makes a soft, sleepy sound and nuzzles against the back of his neck. Aaron has discovered he is slow to wake in the morning, sleepy and groggy, his brain taking a while to fully leave sleep behind. He smiles against Kevin’s hand, then rolls to face him.

“Hey.”

“Mmmmhey,” Kevin mumbles. Aaron laughs and rubs their noses together. Kevin smiles without opening his eyes. His arm loops around Aaron’s waist and pulls him flush against him. Aaron hooks a leg over Kevin’s hip and presses his face into Kevin’s throat, soaking in the warmth of his skin. Slowly, Kevin’s hand starts to rub circles on his back.

“I could just stay in bed with you all day,” Aaron says, sighing contentedly.

“Mmm won’t argue.” Kevin burrows his face into Aaron’s hair. Aaron laughs, low and breathy. He kisses Kevin’s shoulder, his collarbone, the base of his throat. He starts to brush his lips up Kevin’s neck, featherlight kisses. Kevin shivers beneath him and tilts his head away so Aaron has better access. Aaron quirks a brow, then presses kisses a little firmer to Kevin’s neck, parts his lips and lets his tongue press to Kevin’s skin. Kevin moans softly. His bleary eyes blink open.

“You like that,” Aaron says.

“Maybe too much.”

“No such thing.” Aaron pushes Kevin onto his back and straddles his hips. Kevin flushes beneath him, not just his cheeks red, but colour streaking down his chest. Aaron trails his fingers along the pink, feels the rapid fire beat of Kevin’s heart beneath his fingers. “You look so pretty like this. All spread out and blushing for me.”

“I’m not blushing.”

“Oh, sweetness, you are. You are turning strawberry red,” Aaron says. Kevin turns his head to press his face to the pillows. “Hey. Look at me. I love it when you flush for me. Don’t hide those pretty cheeks.”

“Mmph.”

“Kevin.”

“You make me feel,” Kevin says.

“What do I make you feel?”

“Everything. Too much. I don’t know what to do with it all.”

“Show me. Give me some of those feelings.”

Kevin surges up, arms wrapping around Aaron and pulling him close. He kisses him with a fervour, mouth hungry, licking into Aaron’s mouth with a desperate sound. Aaron whimpers, heat burning molten through his stomach. He tangles his fingers in Kevin’s hair and rocks his hips down against him. Kevin moans, low and deep. Aaron does it again.

Aaron already sleeps naked, no shame in his body, so now he is bare and hard as he straddles Kevin’s lap. Kevin’s fingers trail teasingly over his chest and stomach.

“May I?”

“Please.”

Then Kevin’s hand is around him, and his mouth is at Aaron’s jaw. He mouths hotly along his jawline, sucks a bruise beneath Aaron’s ear that has him whining and arching his back. Kevin’s hand is warm around him, smoother than his own, and he strokes him long and slow in a steady rhythm. 

“Gorgeous,” he whispers into Aaron’s neck, before he presses an open mouthed kiss to his skin, thrums his tongue to the beat of Aaron’s pulse. Aaron wriggles his hips. Kevin’s free hand moves from his back to his chest, thumb ghosting over one of Aaron’s nipples. Aaron tugs Kevin’s hair impulsively in reaction, and Kevin growls against his throat.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I like it.”

“Oh.” Aaron tugs again. Kevin moans, then bites the curve where his neck meets shoulder. Aaron presses his face to Kevin’s hair with a helpless moan. He’s so hot, skin tingling all over, and his senses feel assaulted with so many sensations. It’s not long before he’s clutching Kevin’s shoulders and spilling between them. Kevin continues to stroke him slower until he’s gone soft in his hand.

Aaron’s forehead falls forward against Kevin’s shoulder. With complete tenderness, Kevin very gently brushes any curls back from his sweat damp forehead, tucks them behind his ears. He rubs Aaron’s back, pressing soft kisses to the top of his head.

“That okay?”

“Mhm,” Aaron says, nuzzling into Kevin’s neck. “Very okay.”

“You really intending on keeping me in bed all day, hm?”

Aaron forces his heavy head to lift so he can look at Kevin, who nods to the side of the bed. The four poster bed is now encased in vines and flowers, criss crossing between the wooden posts of the bed frame like a cage. 

“Whoops,” Aaron says, with a sleepy smile. “Guess I lost control.” 

“Cute.” Kevin kisses his temple, and gently eases Aaron off of him. He uses his own clothing to wipe the come from his stomach. “If you can open a gap for me, I’ll bring you breakfast.”

“Mmmm, but you.”

“What about me?”

“I haven’t got you.”

“I’m okay. I can wait. You’re all sleepy.”

“I want to.”

“And you can. After breakfast.” 

“You’re hard now.”

“That will not be a problem. That’s a side effect of being near you.”

Aaron snorts into the sheets, all soft limbed and languid. He gives a whine of protest when Kevin shifts to get up, but encourages the vines to part for him. Kevin brings back fruit and feeds Aaron with his head in his lap, careful fingers plucking grapes from the vine and delivering them to Aaron’s lips. Aaron licks and sucks at his fingers in thanks.

“What did I say about spoiling me?”

“That you would never leave. Surely that was encouragement.”

Aaron laughs and snaps playfully at Kevin’s fingers. Kevin draws his hand back, then flicks Aaron’s nose.

“Behave,” Kevin says.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Aaron turns his head to bite the skin of Kevin’s stomach. Kevin laughs and presses a gentle hand to his cheek. “I love your laugh. You should laugh more.”

“Feel like I’ve been laughing a lot more lately.”

“Good. It’s one of my favourite sounds.” Aaron reaches up and touches the corner of Kevin’s smiling mouth. Kevin turns and presses kisses to his fingertips. “Can I get you off now?”

“You’re so impatient.”

“I waited all through breakfast like you asked. I think that’s very patient of me.”

“You’re right. You’re a pinnacle of patience,” Kevin says, setting the breakfast leftovers aside. As he’s shifting back, vines come down from the back of the bed and wrap around his wrists, pull them up over his head. He gasps in surprise, then looks at Aaron with dark eyes. “You’re a minx, is what you are.”

“Don’t know what you mean.” Aaron rolls over and presses his cheek to Kevin’s lap, feeling his cock start to harden beneath his clothes. “Is this okay? I’ll stop if you want.”

Kevin’s teeth are biting into his lower lip. He glances up and gives a little tug against the vines, lashes fluttering when they hold firm. 

“It’s okay,” he says, voice husky. The vines pull fractionally tighter and Kevin exhales a breathy moan. 

“Lift your hips.”

Kevin does, and Aaron pulls his clothes away. He settles on his stomach, fingers tracing the shape of Kevin’s cock lightly. It twitches beneath his touch. Aaron grins and wraps his hand around it. Kevin’s breathing comes a little heavier. 

“I think I like having you at my mercy,” Aaron says, watching Kevin’s expression as he strokes him. Kevin’s eyes are hooded, pupils blown, sucking on his low lip as he watches Aaron. Aaron holds his gaze as he leans forward and flicks his tongue against his cock. Kevin closes his eyes like it’s too much. “Ah, ah. I want you to watch me.”

“You’re going to be the death of me.”

“Thought I made you feel alive.”

“You’re an oxymoron.”

“Rude.”

“That’s not what it- _oh_.” Kevin cuts off as Aaron licks him again, circling his tongue around the tip before he takes Kevin into his mouth. Kevin’s thighs tremble beneath his hand. “Full disclosure: I am not going to last long.”

Aaron smirks around him. He hollows his cheeks and bobs his head. Kevin swears softly beneath his breath. Aaron can see the muscles in his arms lightly flex against the vines, his fingers grasping at nothing, the muscles of his stomach tensing. It feels intoxicating to know he has such a powerful god submitting to him. 

Kevin is correct. He does not last long. Aaron ignores his warning that he’s close and keeps sucking him off, swallowing around him when he comes. Kevin swears softly. Aaron keeps him in his mouth until he’s whining. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, then presses kisses to Kevin’s thigh, hip, stomach. Carefully, the vines loosen and slide away from his hands.

“Fuck,” Kevin says, sagging into the bed. Aaron takes his hands and rubs his wrists gently, pressing kisses to the light red marks his bindings left. “You look so sweet, but you are absolutely sinful.”

“There’s nothing sinful about me,” Aaron says, sweetly dotting kisses around Kevin’s wrist. Kevin smiles, fingers trailing down Aaron’s cheek.

“No. You’re right.”

“Of course I am. Why would my love be sinful?” Aaron tugs Kevin’s arm around his shoulder and lays against his chest. Kevin goes still and quiet for a moment. “Kevin?”

“Love?”

“Yes?”

“You could love me?” Kevin’s brow is furrowed in the way it sometimes gets when he’s focusing intently on reading. 

“I do, you dumbass. You think I fall so freely into bed with anyone?”

Kevin blinks, rapidly and repeatedly, but Aaron still catches the glitter of tears before he blinks them away. 

“You are too good for this,” he says, with such somber conviction it makes Aaron feel cold. He frowns and smacks his hand against Kevin’s chest. 

“Pssh. I think that is for me to decide, and not your self pity.” Aaron can see Kevin retreating inside himself. The distance in his gaze. The way his body starts to go still and stiff. He grasps Kevin’s jaw firmly between his thumb and forefinger, forces him to look at him. “Usually people like to hear that. Are you not happy?”

“Indescribably.” Kevin sounds anything but, though he does wrap Aaron in his embrace. He presses his face to Aaron’s hair and breathes him in. “I truly lack the capacity for the amount of feeling you inspire in me.”

“You could just say you love me, too.”

“I do. Of course I do. Who could not?”

“Well…”

“I doubt anyone in their right mind could spend time with you and not be completely charmed.”

“Tough luck to them, I don’t want anyone else.”

“Aaron-“

“No. Don’t argue with me.” Aaron shifts back from Kevin’s hold so he can look at him. “All my life, I have been told what to do. I’ve been denied choices. I was charged with a debt before I even entered this world; to carry the weight of my mother’s labour in exchange for my life. My entire life, dictated by her selfishness, the implication I couldn’t be trusted to make my own decisions ever present, when really it was just her selfish desire for control. Well, this decision is mine. I came here by my own choice, and I stayed here by my own choice, I kissed you by my own choice, and each day I am choosing you. My own choice. Do not try and take that from me.”

Kevin listens with a frown, but his eyes intently present, taking in every word. When Aaron is done, he pauses a moment, then nods. He lifts Aaron’s hand and presses his lips to the knuckles, and some of the tension goes from Aaron’s shoulders.

“I would never,” Kevin says quietly. “I am yours as long as you want me, I just want you to be aware there are other options.”

“Nah. Not for me. Not anymore. You’ve won me over with your grumpy awkwardness.” He grins at Kevin’s blush, then curls back into his chest. Kevin rubs his back, and Aaron presses his ear to Kevin’s heart, listening to the steady beat of it.

Yes. This is what he chooses.

*

Happiness has always seemed like such a fleeting thing to Aaron. Something grasped desperately in the moments between exhaustion, pain, sadness. Something that he couldn’t manage to hold onto beneath the weight of living. He would feel it, a relief, a high, and then it would be gone just as fast.

Being in Hades is different. Being with Kevin is different. Happiness is the background noise now. Is in laughing conversations over breakfast, long walks with Cerberus, curling together to read on the chaise by the fire, stripping down and taking each other apart in the sheets. Even when nightmares stir him awake with fear, Kevin is there, a grounding force soothing him back to calm. When his body aches with the phantom memory of old wounds, Kevin rubs his muscles out and dots kisses over his scars. 

Kevin himself is not always happy. Sometimes he seems distant and vague for no reason. Sometimes Aaron finds him staring into space with empty eyes. He doesn’t pressure him to be happy. Gently takes his hand and sits with him as Kevin blinks back to him with a tired smile. Curls against him when Kevin is slow and still. Their existence together is not founded on happiness, but they often come together, and for Aaron that is more than enough. 

They are in the garden today. Aaron with Kevin’s cloak over him as he rests his head on Kevin’s stomach. Kevin petting his hair with one hand as he reads with another. Aaron has been napping, and in the hazy, floating area between sleep and awake, he nuzzles his face into Kevin’s stomach and thinks this, this is what home feels like, this is what it feels like to finally find where he belongs.

*

It is Jeremy who brings them word of the intruder, breathing hard from running all the way.

“Jean sent a harpy to let me know,” Jeremy says, hands on his knees as he struggles to catch his breath.

“Do we know who it is?”

“I- he says- Aaron, but not.”

Kevin looks at Aaron, who glances back in confusion for a moment before his face flashes with recognition.

“Oh fuck,” Aaron says. “It’s Andrew.”

“Andrew?” Kevin says.

“My brother.”

“You brother, Andrew- the god?”

“Yes.”

“Would your mother have sent him?”

“I don’t think so. They don’t really speak.”

“Okay.” Kevin rubs the bridge of his nose. “Jeremy, go back to your post. Send Cerberus to me. We shall let him through and speak to him.”

“Oh, too late, my lady,” Jeremy says. “He’s almost here.”

As if to emphasise Jeremy’s point, the door to the castle slams open. It ricochets against the wall and slams a second time. Loud whimpering echoes down the corridor.

“Cereberus,” Aaron says, and in a flash he has ducked around them both.

“Go,” Kevin says to Jeremy. “I will handle this.”

Kevin walks swiftly after Aaron, finding him in the foyer. At first he does not recognise Aaron in the other man, who is clad in armour. His arms and legs are more muscular than Aaron’s, and there is no softness to him. His eyes are narrowed and fierce, his mouth a thin line. He is dragging Cerberus by a fistful of fur, a sword pressed to his neck.

“Andrew. Let him go,” Aaron says, and at the sight of him Cerberus whimpers and struggles.

“This beast?”

“He’s not a beast, he’s a dog. Please.”

“Whatever. I just needed him to lead me to you.” Andrew shoves him away and Cerberus’ paws scrabble desperately against the floor for purchase before he runs to Aaron. He lies on his tummy behind him and whimpers, heads down as if Aaron’s frame could hide him, as if he were not much larger than him still. Aaron pets his noses soothingly, one after the other.

“It’s okay, boy. You’re okay now. Shh shh. There’s my good boy.”

“You coddle this beast?”

“He’s not a beast,” Aaron says, and Kevin can hear anger seeping into his tone now. He steps closer to the pair of them and Andrew’s angry eyes turn to him.

“You,” he says, and with surprising speed he is across the room with his sword to Kevin’s throat. “You think you could kidnap my brother?”

“What? No one kidnapped me,” Aaron says.

“Don’t lie to me, Aaron. Tilda told me everything.”

Aaron laughs; it’s a sharp, bitter sound Kevin has never heard from him. He crosses to Kevin’s side and bares his torso.

“Did she, now? Did she tell you how I was enslaved to work the fields for her? How she beat me if I didn’t work enough?” 

Andrew takes in the marks, then looks to Aaron’s face for confirmation. Aaron stares back at him, then gives a brief nod. Andrew side glances Kevin, but his sword slackens slightly.

“Come. Sit. We’ll speak,” Aaron says, turning to head for the dining room. “You, too, Kevin.”

The air is thick and heavy with tension. Kevin stands by Aaron’s side, letting him have his chair while Andrew sits at Aaron’s usual place, which has now moved up to beside Kevin. He keeps staring at Kevin while he polishes his sword.

“So, speak,” Andrew says, and Aaron sighs and rubs his eyes.

“If she thought Aaron were captured, why did your mother not say so sooner?” Kevin asks. 

“She’s not _my_ mother,” Andrew says, disgusted.

“Andrew was not birthed,” Aaron explains quietly. “He kicked his way from our father’s head, armour bound.”

“You are the one that cursed that girl,” Kevin says.

“I didn’t _curse_ anyone, death god. Medusa was victimised in my temple. I gave her power over those who would try again. Dare those who find her defenceless even gaze upon her, and they would learn their lesson. It was a gift.”

Kevin says nothing, but Aaron can read from his expression it would not be his definition of a gift. 

“Anyway. Why would you come here, Aaron? You could have come to me.”

“She would have found me.”

“You think I couldn’t protect you?”

“I don’t want you to. I don’t _want_ to be protected. I want to be free. I want to have my right to choose.”

“This is not a choice. This is a prison.”

“It’s not.”

“You are tucked away from the world. Hiding. This is cowardice.”

“No.” Aaron feels Kevin lay a hand on his shoulder and draws strength from it. “This is my home.”

“He’s manipulated you.”

“What?”

“I did no such thing,” Kevin says.

“Of course you have. All alone down here. How convenient such a pretty boy would walk right into your hands. Alone. Vulnerable.”

“Andrew, it wasn’t like that.”

“It looks exactly like that.” Andrew stands. “You’re coming back with me, and we’ll sort this out.”

“No.”

“That wasn’t a question.”

“Andrew, no.”

Andrew grabs his arm and drags him up. Aaron looks at Kevin, who is seething with the black cloud of anger around him, one Aaron hasn’t seen in a long time. He shakes his head in a silent plea for Kevin to stay out of it. Kevin’s jaw tenses, but he steps back. The green is gone from his eyes, leaving two hollow black holes, and Aaron’s insides ache with the thought of losing him.

Andrew is stronger than him. Has dragged him halfway to the door with ease, but Aaron sends the vine of his arm bracelet down around his feet at the same time he shoulders him in the chest. Andrew crashes to the ground, and Aaron makes a run for it. He does not run to door, but towards the table.

Andrew is up before he reaches it. Aaron can hear the clank of his armour before he tackles him, the force sending them both crashing forward towards the table. The stone of the table hitting Aaron’s front sends pain bursting through him, but it’s good, it’s where he wanted to be.

His hand closes around a pomegranate. Not one of his, but one of Kevin’s. Food of the dead.

“Aaron-“ he hears Kevin say. “Don’t.”

It’s too late. Aaron bites into the pomegranate and the juice flows down his chin and onto his chest like blood. Andrew’s fingers are immediately at his mouth, pulling back his lips. He clenches his teeth and Andrew squeezes his jaw painfully until they open. His fingers press desperate into Aaron’s mouth and scrape the seeds out. Aaron coughs and gags around them, but when Andrew releases him and he sags against the table, he laughs. Triumphant. Delighted.

He’s too late. Aaron swallowed a mouthful of seeds.

*

Andrew is furious. His expression doesn’t betray much, but Aaron can tell. He’s sitting with his hands curled into fists, his jaw popping from his clenched teeth, his eyes narrowed and brows slanted in displeasure. Once he realised what Aaron had done, he had gone for Kevin. Slamming him into the ground and squeezing his throat, and Kevin had taken it without fighting back until Aaron had to use all of his own power and his vines to drag Andrew away and secure him to a chair.

Eventually he had calmed down enough for Aaron to unbind him. Aaron’s sat himself on Kevin’s lap like a shield and summoned Cerberus to their side, a united front against Andrew’s anger. Aaron brushes his fingertips lightly over the bruises on Kevin’s throat.

“There was no need for this,” Aaron says. “I already told you I was here by my own choice.”

“And now you’re trapped. So much for freedom.”

“A trap suggests something I was tricked into. You might have forced my hand, but I knew what I was doing.”

“You’re blaming me?”

“I’m not blaming anyone, but you are the one who tried to drag me away.”

“You didn’t have to go back to her. I told you, I would keep you safe.”

“It’s not just about her.” Aaron sighs. He drapes his arms around Kevin’s shoulders and presses his forehead to his temple, ignoring Andrew’s glare. “I’m happy here. I didn’t want to leave it behind. I didn’t want to leave him behind.”

Kevin smiles; a small, thin flash of a smile, as Aaron takes his hand. He squeezes reassuringly. 

“And now you can’t leave.”

“That’s not true,” Kevin says, and they both look to him. “He only swallowed a few seeds. Consuming any food of the dead is enough to bind him to the underworld, and to me, but not always. He can still roam the surface world.” 

“Expand,” Andrew says, leaning forward with his elbows on the table.

“You remember swallowing six?”

“I think so. It was difficult to count with Andrew’s fingers in my mouth.” Aaron glares at his brother, who glares back just as fiercely.

“Then I think you would need to be here at least six months of the year.”

“So an even split,” Andrew says. 

“If that’s what Aaron wishes. Any longer away from here and you’ll start to feel weak.”

They come to an agreement. Aaron is not happy about it. Andrew isn’t happy about it, either, but Aaron thinks it really has little to do with him, so he doesn’t care about his displeasure. Six months on the surface, and six below. Six months bringing his gifts to the people, spending time with Andrew, seeing the sun again. Six long months away from Kevin. His heart aches at the thought, but Andrew is stubborn, and he will not shift.

“Give me a few days,” Aaron asks, exhausted from negotiations. “A few days to say goodbye and I will meet you at the surface.”

“Fine,” Andrew says. “I have something to attend to anyway, but you’d better be there when you say.”

“I will,” Aaron says. 

“You’re welcome to stay here and rest for the night,” Kevin says, which Aaron thinks is very nice of him considering his voice is still hoarse from Andrew’s strangling.

“No. As I said, I have matters to attend to.”

He stands and tucks his sword away, and they walk him to the doors. He meets Aaron’s gaze and for a moment the warrior’s ice in his eyes melts away, and Aaron can see the rest of Andrew, can see the god who also rules poetry and art, and he can see the brotherly love for him there. He lets his own gaze soften and nods. As angry as he is, he cannot hold that anger against Andrew forever. 

Aaron walks him down to the boat and finds Jeremy sitting with a shaken looking Jean. He tenses at the sight of Andrew, and Aaron slides ahead to meet them.

“I hope my brother didn’t cause you too much trouble,” he says, taking Jean’s hands in his.

“Non, I will be fine. You are leaving us?”

“Not yet. It’s… a long story. Will you take Andrew back across for me?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.” 

“We would be sad to see you go, Aaron.”

“I won’t stay away for long. I can’t.”

“You mean?”

“He means he ate the fucking dead food like a fool, and now he’s tethered to this place for half the year,” Andrew says, already climbing into the boat. Both Jean and Jeremy look torn between shock and delight.

“No one could remove me from him that easily,” Aaron says quietly, and their expressions settle in delight. 

“You are a much needed ray of sunlight here,” Jean says, and kisses both Aaron’s cheeks. He kisses Jeremy’s mouth, brief and sweet, then goes to ferry a glaring Andrew back. 

“Big commitment,” Jeremy says, falling into step with Aaron as they head back up the path towards the castle. Unlike Kevin, Jeremy slows his pace and matches Aaron’s. Ahead, they can see Kevin waiting with Cerberus at his post.

“There was never any other option for me,” Aaron says, smiling softly at the sight of him. “I had already chosen him.”

*

It is their last night and Aaron’s heart is heavy with the grief of leaving already. They have sparsely been apart since Andrew left, and today they have only let each other go when strictly necessary.

“Take me to your bed tonight,” Aaron says. They’re on the chaise in the library, Aaron curled in Kevin’s lap. Neither of them reading. Just holding each other, trying to memorise each other’s faces, sharing kisses and not mentioning if they are sometimes damp with tears. “I’ve never seen your room.”

“It’s quite dull. That’s why I usually come to yours. You have breathed so much life into it.”

“I want to see where you existed before me. I want to take you in the bed that I’ve never touched. I want to imprint the memory of us on your sheets.”

Kevin kisses him, and scoops him up, and carries him up the stairs in such an impressive show of strength that even through the sadness, Aaron’s stomach burns with desire. He carries him to his chamber, which, as Kevin said, is mostly dull. A little larger than Aaron’s room, but not much different than how it looked before he decorated. A small stack of books near his bed are the only sign of personality. 

The bed is soft when Kevin spills Aaron on to it, but his body is firm when he crawls over him. Aaron touches the fading bruises on his neck, presses sweet kisses to them.

“I’m going to leave my marks over these,” he says.

“I will be happy to have anything you give me.”

“I can only give you myself.”

“The most priceless thing in all the worlds.”

“You are so fucking cheesy,” Aaron says, but there’s tears in his eyes again as his mouth finds Kevin’s and he pours all his love and passion into that kiss.

They spend hours in Kevin’s bed, stroking and kissing every stretch of skin. Aaron covers Kevin’s neck and chest and shoulders in dark hickies that will take weeks to fade. Kevin’s hands map out Aaron’s body like they're trying to memorise his shape. They’re both achingly hard, but ignore it in favour of kissing and touching and fawning over each other.

When Aaron does finally shift between Kevin’s legs, he opens him slowly, prepping him with love and care, catching Kevin’s moans in his mouth as his fingers press inside him. Kevin strokes his hair, his cheek, brushes his thumb over Aaron’s lower lip, says his name over and over like a prayer. When Aaron slides into him they moan together, their breath mingling between them, and it is sex, but it is more. It is so good, but it is also bittersweet, tainted by the knowledge Aaron is leaving tomorrow. He interlocks their fingers as he rocks into Kevin, and Kevin watches him with adoration in his damp eyes.

“I love you,” Aaron says. “So much.”

“I love you,” Kevin says back. “Wherever you are, you take my heart with you.”

“I’ll try to keep it safe.”

“I trust you will.”

Then they are kissing again, Aaron’s hips pressed flush to Kevin, Kevin whimpering against his mouth. He only lets go of one of Kevin’s hands to reach between them and stroke him, and when Kevin comes, he is not far behind, pressing his face to Kevin’s shoulder with a quiet sob. 

They clean up and curl together, Kevin holding Aaron against his chest like he is something precious, like he is the most precious thing in his world. Aaron clutches at his waist, trying to rid any space that might dare try to linger between them. Neither of them want to sleep. Neither of them want to lose what time they have together, but eventually tiredness wins out, and they drift off wrapped in each other.

*

Jeremy meets them with Cerberus in the morning and walks them down to the river. He hugs Aaron hard before they part.

“I’ll bring back a whole harvest from the surface,” Aaron says. “We can have a feast when I return.”

“I look forward to it.” 

Cerberus soaks him with kisses from all his tongues. Aaron buries his face in his fur and holds tight to him for a long time. When they board Jean’s boat, Cerberus stands on the bank and cries, and Aaron’s heart is breaking. 

“I’ll take good care of him,” Kevin promises, letting Aaron clutch tight to his hand.

Jean hugs him almost as hard as Jeremy did once they’ve crossed the river. He kisses each of Aaron’s cheeks again and Aaron clasps his hand in his when they draw apart.

“Thank you for your friendship,” he says. Jean sniffs.

“And for yours.”

“It’s only six months.”

“We will all be awaiting your return.” 

Then he is alone with Kevin, who walks him up the tunnel to the entrance. They don’t speak. They have said all that has to be said, and now there is only the weight of their time apart between them. Kevin stops where the sun reaches in through the opening. Aaron can hear the ocean from here, smell the sea salt air. He turns to face Kevin.

“There are no words to describe how much I will miss you, mon amour.”

Aaron nods, not trusting himself to speak right now. He tugs Kevin down and kisses him bruisingly hard. Kevin’s arms wrap around him, hold him close, and he cherishes these last moments of feeling safe, protected, loved.

“It’s only six months,” he says again, trying to convince himself. His voice is thick with emotion. Kevin brushes a stray tear from his cheeks.

“Six months,” he says. “I will see you soon.”

Aaron looks over his shoulder as he steps out to meet Andrew, and Kevin stays watching him until the wall closes over and takes him from view.

*

The months stretch into a small eternity. Aaron is miserable for most of the first one, but slowly comes out of it. He misses Kevin constantly, but he is remembering the small joys of the earth. The warmth of the sun, the fresh scent of the open air, the soil beneath his feet.

He does not see Tilda.

“She can’t touch you,” Andrew told him when he first came out. Aaron had made a face, unconvinced. “I have taken her hands and hidden one on either side of the land. While you are here, she will never be able to touch you.”

Aaron is shocked by this, but Andrew shows no sign of remorse. Aaron is also, secretly, very relieved. 

Rather than returning to the fields, he goes with Andrew. He spends his time travelling the nearby villages and rural areas, teaching them how to plant and grow their own food, passing on the secrets of harvest to them. He goes into forests and meadows and places of natural greenery and encourages their growth. Helps fight out the disease and heal the damaged plants.

He is not as happy as he was in Hades, but it’s good work. It’s work he enjoys and finds worthwhile. It’s work he chooses to do, and therefore he is much happier than he was in Tilda’s fields.

He gets closer to Andrew, too. Despite their matching appearances, they are so different beneath. Andrew is cold, thorny, difficult to penetrate the armour he has built around himself, but Aaron has practice with grumpy gods now. By the end of the six months, they have built a somewhat shaky friendship on top of the foundation of their brotherhood. When it is finally time to return home, Aaron hugs Andrew hard, and Andrew is the last one to let go.

*

Aaron doesn’t send word ahead of his return. He wants it to be a surprise. He jogs the long length of the tunnel as best he can while heaving both a bag and a large basket of produce, breathless by the time he bursts into Jean’s open cavern. Jean, whose face lights up at the sight of him, who runs laughing to meet him and sweeps him up in an embrace.

“How sneaky, we were not expecting you until next week!”

“I know. I wanted to surprise Kevin.”

“And what a happy surprise, indeed. Oh, you look so well. So golden. You are glowing.”

“Hard to keep the tan, down here,” Aaron says, grinning as Jean looks him over. He does a little twirl for show and Jean laughs. 

“Come. I am sure you cannot wait to be back.”

“No,” Aaron says, excitement making his stomach a twisting, squirming thing. Jean takes the basket for him and carries it to his boat. “How has he been?”

“I am sure you can guess.”

“I can, but I’m asking.”

“He was in quite a mood at first. We barely saw him. He came out of it after a few weeks. Your letters cheered him up. He still goes through his routines, and Jeremy and I have been checking in on him, but you know how Kevin gets. He goes through dark spells.”

“They have been more frequent?”

“A bit. His heart has been unhappy without you.”

“Not for much longer.”

“Leave your stuff,” Jean says when they reach the other side. “Jeremy and I will bring it up later. Just go to him.”

“Thank you,” Aaron says, and bolts down the path.

Cerberus isn’t at his post. Aaron is happy to know at least Kevin isn’t in the castle alone. He runs until he reaches it, his home, and lets himself in. He can’t find Kevin in any of the rooms. He wanders through the castle, calling for him, before making his way to the back garden.

Kevin is sitting by the pond. There’s a book abandoned by his side on the blanket, but he’s just staring into the water. All the colour Aaron breathed into the garden is gone. The trees are bare, and the flower petals have fallen away. As he steps foot onto the grass, they start to bloom again.

Cerberus spots him first, and runs towards him with a great, woofing bark. Aaron throws himself at him, buries his face in his fur and breathes in his comforting animal scent as Cerberus noses and licks him. He shifts his face to see past him, and there is Kevin, shock just starting to shift to joy.

“Aaron.”

He starts to rise, but Aaron let’s go of Cerberus and runs for him. He sends Kevin sprawling back onto the blanket with a tackle hug. Kevin clings to him tightly, cheek pressed to Aaron’s, both of them breathing hard for a moment. Then messily, frantically, desperately their mouths find each other, and they are kissing. Aaron’s hands in Kevin’s hair, Kevin’s hands on Aaron’s waist, and it feels like they have never been apart, feels as easy as breathing to come back together like this.

They kiss until they’re breathless, and then Kevin gathers Aaron in his lap and holds him close. He presses kisses to Aaron’s temple, his forehead, into his hair. Aaron presses his hand to Kevin’s chest and feels the grounding rhythm of his heart. 

“Surprise,” Aaron says softly.

“This is the best surprise I have ever received,” Kevin says. “Though I would have met you by the entrance if I’d known.”

“Wouldn’t have been a surprise then,” Aaron says, nuzzling into Kevin’s shoulder. Kevin rubs his back and seems more interested in pressing more kisses to his hair than he does with speaking. As Aaron luxuriates in the affection, he looks around the garden.

“I’m afraid it wilted in your absence,” Kevin says. “As did I.”

“Don’t worry. I can help with that,” Aaron says, and as the garden slowly comes to life around them again, he can see Kevin’s eyes brightening too. Love and joy and life coming back into them. “But I think, before Jeremy and Jean get here, you should take me to bed.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea,” Kevin says, and scoops Aaron up. 

Aaron reclaims Kevin, sucking bruises that have long since faced back into his skin. Kevin strokes and kisses and worships him, and Aaron scratches and bites and pulls his hair in return. Kevin trembles and whimpers beneath him, saying only _Aaron_ or _more_.

“You can have as much as you want,” Aaron says, tugging Kevin’s hair to force his head back. “You’re my good boy.”

Kevin whimpers and Aaron grins against his collarbone.

“I _knew_ you liked that.”

“Never said I didn’t,” Kevin says, flushing beautifully for him. God, Aaron missed that blush. Missed all of him. 

“You are so good. My beautiful boy.” Aaron bites Kevin’s ear lobe and Kevin makes a desperate sound, turning his head and kissing over Aaron’s cheek to his mouth. 

They come together, and end up a sleepy tangle in the sheets, Aaron finding Kevin’s hand and holding tight.

“That good?”

“Amazing,” Kevin says, kissing his knuckles. “I feel alive again.”

Aaron smiles and curls against Kevin’s chest. He presses a kiss over his heart; his precious, beating heart that he has entrusted to Aaron. Kevin kisses the top of his head and Aaron sighs happily. It’s good to be home.

**Author's Note:**

> I very purposefully wrote “clothes” instead of specifying throughout this because I couldn’t decide if I wanted them in traditional Ancient Greek attire or not lmaooo


End file.
